PART 2 — THE GIRL WITH MY HUSBAND’S EYES
I didn’t let anyone move a single box into my house.
The movers stood awkwardly in the driveway while Vanessa argued with me in increasingly frantic whispers.
“She’s just upset,” Vanessa said.
“Who is she?”
“Please.”
“Who is her father?”
Vanessa looked away.
I repeated the question.
“Who is her father?”
Diane stepped forward.
“Don’t interrogate the child.”
“I am not interrogating her. I’m asking a question that everyone here seems desperate to avoid.”
Robert finally spoke.
“Her father is my nephew.”
Vanessa turned sharply.
“Dad!”
Robert ignored her.
I looked at him.
“Your nephew?”
He nodded.
“What is his name?”
Robert hesitated.
“Michael.”
The name meant nothing to me.
Then the girl spoke again.
“His name isn’t Michael.”
Everyone went silent.
Her little fingers tightened around the rabbit.
“His name is David.”
I felt a strange chill.
My late husband had a younger brother named David.
He had vanished twenty years earlier.
Or at least that was what I’d been told.
Daniel always said his uncle David had disappeared after getting into financial trouble.
We never heard from him again.
I looked at Robert.
“Who is David?”
He stared at me.
Then Diane started crying.
I knew immediately.
They knew something.
Something enormous.
“What happened to David?”
Robert swallowed.
“He left.”
“Why?”
“He had problems.”
“What kind of problems?”
Vanessa interrupted.
“This isn’t the time.”
I turned on her.
“You brought an unknown child onto my property and told me I would change my mind when I saw her.”
Vanessa looked down.
The girl suddenly stepped forward.
“My daddy said you didn’t know the truth.”
My chest tightened.
“What truth?”
“She said you’re not really my grandma.”
I looked at Vanessa.
“What?”
The girl’s face crumpled.
“She said you would hate me.”
“I would never hate you.”
She shook her head.
“She said you hated my father.”
I knelt so we were eye to eye.
“What’s your name?”
“Lily.”
“Lily, nobody is going to hurt you here.”
Vanessa stepped forward.
“That’s enough.”
I stood.
“No. It isn’t.”
Then I noticed the girl’s backpack.
There was something sticking out of the side pocket.
A photograph.
I reached toward it.
Lily pulled it out first.
Then stared at it.
“I brought this because Daddy said you might know him.”
She handed it to me.
I took the photograph.
My fingers went numb.
It showed a young man standing beside my husband.
My husband was smiling.
The other man was David.
But standing between them was a little girl.
A toddler.
I stared at the photograph.
My husband had written something on the back.
My hands trembled as I turned it over.
She’s yours. Protect her.
My breath caught.
I looked up.
“What is this?”
Diane began crying harder.
Robert sat down on the edge of a garden chair.
Vanessa covered her face.
And then Daniel’s car came flying through the gate.
He jumped out and ran toward us.
“Mom!”
I held up the photograph.
“What is this?”
His expression told me everything before he said a word.
“You weren’t supposed to find out like this.”
My stomach dropped.
“Find out what?”
He looked at Lily.
Then back at me.
“Mom…”
“Tell me.”
He took a breath.
“David didn’t disappear.”
I stared at him.
“Where is he?”
Daniel looked toward the road.
And whispered:
“He’s been alive this entire time.”
